|
|
|
Vigyan Bhairav Tantra - Meditation
Technique 25 JUST AS YOU
HAVE THE IMPULSE TO DO SOMETHING, STOP.
Osho - All these techniques are concerned with stopping in the
middle. George Gurdjieff made these techniques very well-known in the
West, but he was not aware of VIGYANA BHAIRAVA TANTRA. He learned these
techniques in Tibet from Buddhist lamas. He worked on these techniques
in the West, and many, many seekers came to realize the center through
these techniques. He called them stop exercises, but the source of these
exercises is VIGYANA BHAIRAVA TANTRA.
Buddhists learned from VIGYANA BHAIRAVA. Sufis also have such exercises;
they are also borrowed from VIGYANA BHAIRAVA. Basically, this is the
source book of all techniques which are known all over the world.
Gurdjieff used it in a very simple way. For example, he would tell his
students to dance. A group would be dancing -- a group of, say, twenty
people would be dancing -- and suddenly he would say, "Stop!" And the
moment Gurdjieff would say stop, they would have to stop totally.
Wherever the pause would fall, they would have to stop then and there.
No change could be made, no adjustment could be made. If one of your
feet was above the earth and you were just standing on one foot, you
would have to remain that way. If you fell, that was another thing, but
you were not to cooperate with the fall. If your eyes were opened, they
had to remain opened. Now you could not close them. If they closed by
themselves, that was another thing. But as far as you were concerned,
consciously you had stopped, you had become just like a stone statue.
Miracles happened because in activity, in dance, in movement, when
suddenly you stop, a gap happens. This sudden stoppage of all activity
divides you into two: your body and you. Your body and you were in
movement. Suddenly you stop. The body has the tendency to move. It was
in movement, so there is momentum; you were dancing, and there is
momentum. The body is not ready for this sudden stop. Suddenly you feel
that the body has the impulse to do something, but you have stopped. A
gap comes into existence. You feel your body as something distant, far
away, with the impulse to move, with momentum for activity. And because
you have stopped and you are not cooperating with the body and its
activity and its impulse, its momentum, you become separate from it.
But you can deceive yourself. A slight cooperation and the gap will not
happen. For example, you feel uncomfortable, but the teacher has said,
"Stop!" You have heard the word, but still you make yourself comfortable
and then you stop. Then nothing will happen. Then you have deceived
yourself, not the teacher, because you missed the point. The whole point
of the technique is missed. Suddenly, when you hear the word "Stop!"
instantly you have to stop, not doing anything.
Perhaps the posture was inconvenient, you were afraid you might fall
down, you might break a bone. But whatsoever happens, now it is not your
concern. If you have any concern, you will deceive yourself. This
suddenly becoming dead creates a gap. The stopping is at the body and
the stopper is the center; the circumference and the center are
separate. In that sudden stopping you can feel yourself for the first
time; you can feel the center. Gurdjieff used this technique to help
many.
This technique has many dimensions; it can be used in many ways. But
first try to understand the mechanism. The mechanism is simple. You are
in activity, and when you are in activity you forget yourself
completely; the activity becomes the center of your attention.
Someone has died, and you are weeping and crying, and tears are falling
down. You have forgotten yourself completely. The one who has died has
become the center, and around that center this activity is happening --
your weeping, your crying, your sadness, your tears. If I suddenly say
to you, "Stop!" and you stop yourself completely, you will be totally
taken away from your body and the realm of activity. Whenever you are in
activity, you are in it, deeply absorbed in it. Sudden stoppage throws
you off balance; it throws you out of activity. This being thrown leads
you to the center.
Ordinarily, what are we doing? From one activity we move to another. We
go on from one activity to another, from A to B and from B to C. In the
morning, the moment you are awake activity has started. Now you will be
active the whole day. You will change to many activities, but you will
not be inactive for a single moment. How to be inactive? It is
difficult. And if you try to be inactive, your effort to be inactive
will become an activity.
There are many who are trying to be inactive. They sit in a Buddha
posture and they try to be inactive. But how can you try to be inactive?
The very effort is again an activity. So you can convert inactivity also
into activity. You can force yourself to be quiet, still, but that
forcing is an activity of the mind. That is why so many try to go into
meditation but never reach anywhere -- because their meditation is again
an activity. They can change... If you were singing an ordinary song,
you can now change to a BHAJAN, to a devotional song. You can sing slow
now, but both are activities. You are running, you are walking, you are
reading -- these are activities. You can pray -- that too is an
activity. You move from one activity to another.
And with the last thing in the night, when you are falling into sleep,
you are still active; the activity has not stopped. That is why dreams
happen, because the activity goes on. You have fallen asleep, but the
activity continues. In the subconscious you are still active -- doing
things, possessing things, losing things, moving. Dreaming means you
have fallen asleep because of exertion, but the activity is still there
continuously.
Only sometimes, for a few moments -- and these have become more and more
rare for the modern man -- only for a few moments dreaming stops and you
are totally asleep. But then that inactivity is unconscious. You are not
conscious, you are fast asleep. The activity has ceased; now there is no
circumference, now you are at the center -- but totally exhausted,
totally dead, unconscious.
That is why Hindus have always been saying that SUSHUPTI -- dreamless
sleep -- and SAMADHI -- the ultimate ecstasy -- are similar, the same,
with only one difference. But the difference is great: the difference is
of awareness. In sushupti, in dreamless sleep, you are at the center of
your being -- but unaware. In samadhi, in the ultimate ecstasy, in the
ultimate state of meditation, also you are at the center -- but aware.
That is the difference, but it is a great difference, because if you are
unaware, even if you are at the center it is meaningless. It refreshes
you, it makes you more alive again, it gives you vitality -- in the
morning you feel fresh and blissful -- but if you are unaware, even if
you are at the center your life remains the same.
In samadhi you enter yourself fully conscious, fully alert. And once you
are at the center fully alert, you will never be the same again. Now you
will know who you are. Now you will know that your possessions, your
actions are just on the periphery; they are just the ripples, not your
nature.
The mechanism of these techniques of stopping is to throw you suddenly
into inactivity. The point must come suddenly, because if you try to be
inactive you will turn it into activity. So do not try, and suddenly be
inactive. That is the meaning of "Stop!" You are running and I say,
"Stop!" Do not try, just stop! If you try, you will miss the point. For
example, you are sitting here. If I say stop, then stop immediately then
and there; not a single moment is to be missed. If you try and adjust,
and you settle down and then say, "Okay, now I will stop," you have
missed the point. SUDDENLY is the base, so do not make any effort to
stop -- just stop!
You can try it anywhere. You are taking your bath -- suddenly order
yourself to "Stop!" and stop. Even if it is only for a single moment,
you will feel a different phenomenon happening within you. You are
thrown to the center and suddenly everything stops -- not only the body.
When the body stops totally, your mind stops also. When you say, "Stop!"
do not breathe then. Let everything stop... no breathing, no body
movement. For a single moment remain in this stop, and you will feel you
have penetrated suddenly, at rocket speed, to the center. And even a
glimpse is miraculous, revolutionary. It changes you, and by and by you
can have more clear glimpses of the center. That is why inactivity is
not to be practiced. Use it suddenly, when you are unaware.
So a master can be helpful. This is a group method. Gurdjieff used it as
a group method because if you say "Stop!" you can deceive yourself
easily. First you make yourself comfortable and then you say "Stop!" Or
even if consciously you have not made any preparation for it,
unconsciously you may be prepared. Then you may say, "Now I can stop."
If it is done by the mind, if there is a planning behind it, it is
useless; then the technique will not be of any help. So in a group it is
good. A master is working with you, and he says, "Stop!" He will find
moments when you are in a very inconvenient posture, and then a flash
happens, a sudden lightning.
Activity can be practiced; inactivity cannot be practiced -- and if you
practice it, it becomes just another activity. You can be inactive only
suddenly. Sometimes it happens that you are driving a car, and suddenly
you feel there is going to be an accident, that another car has reached
near yours and in just a moment there will be a crash. Suddenly your
mind stops, breathing stops, everything stops. So many times in such
accidents one is thrown to the center. But you may miss the point even
in an accident.
I was in a car and there was an accident, and one of the most beautiful
accidents possible. Three persons were with me, but they missed the
whole thing completely. It could have been a revolution in their lives,
but they missed. The car went down into a river bed, into a dry river
bed, from a bridge. The car was totally upside down, and the three
persons with me began crying; they began weeping.
One woman was there and she was crying. She was just beside me and she
was crying, "I am dead! I am dead!"
I told her, "If you were dead, then no one would be here to say this."
But she was trembling, and she said, "I am dead! What will happen to my
children?" Even after we carried her out of the car she was trembling
and saying the same thing: "What will happen to my children? I am dead!"
It took at least half an hour for her to calm down.
She missed the point. It was such a beautiful thing: suddenly she could
have stopped everything. And one couldn't do anything. The car was
falling from the bridge, so her activity was not needed at all. One
couldn't do anything. But still the mind can create activity. She
started thinking about her children, and then she began crying, "I am
dead!" A subtle moment was missed. In dangerous situations the mind
stops automatically. Why? Because mind is a mechanism and it can work
with only routine things -- that which it has been trained to do.
You cannot train your mind for accidents, otherwise they would not be
called accidents. If you are ready, if you have passed through
rehearsals, then they are not accidents. `Accident' means that the mind
is not ready to do anything. The thing is so sudden, it leaps from the
unknown -- mind cannot do anything. It is not ready, it is not trained
for it. It is bound to stop unless you start something else, unless you
start something for which you are trained.
This woman who was crying about her children was not at all attentive to
what was happening. She was not even aware that she was alive. The
present moment was not in her focus of consciousness. She had moved away
from the situation to her children, to death and to other things. She
had escaped. As far as her attention was concerned, she had escaped from
the situation completely.
But as far as the situation was concerned, nothing could be done; one
could only be aware. Whatsoever was happening was happening. One could
only be aware. As far as the present moment is concerned, in an accident
what can you do? It is already beyond you, and the mind is not prepared
for it. The mind cannot function, so the mind stops.
That is why dangers have a secret appeal, an intrinsic appeal: they are
meditative moments. If you race a car and it goes beyond ninety miles
per hour, and then beyond one hundred and then beyond one hundred and
ten and beyond one hundred and twenty, then a situation comes in which
anything can happen and you will not be able to do anything. Now really,
the car is beyond control, going beyond control. Suddenly the mind
cannot function; it is not ready for it. That is the thrill of speed --
because a silence creeps in, you are thrown to the center.
These techniques help you to move to the center without any accidents,
without any danger. But remember, you cannot practice them. When I say
you cannot practice them, what do I mean? In a way you can practice
them: suddenly you can stop. But the stopping must be sudden, you must
not be prepared for it. You should not think about it and plan it and
say that "At twelve o'clock I will stop." Let the unknown happen to you
when you are unprepared. Move in the unknown, the uncharted, without any
knowledge.
This is one technique:
JUST AS YOU HAVE THE IMPULSE TO DO SOMETHING, STOP.
This is one dimension.
For example, you have the impulse to sneeze. You are feeling that the
impulse is coming, you are feeling the sneeze coming. Now a moment comes
when you cannot do anything -- it will happen. But in the very beginning
of the feeling, when you feel the sensation of a sneeze coming to you,
the moment you become aware, stop! What can you do? Can you stop the
sneeze? If you try to stop the sneeze, the sneeze will come sooner,
because stopping will make your mind more conscious about it and you
will feel the sensation more. You will become more sensitive, your total
attention will be there, and that attention will help the sneeze to come
out sooner. It will become unbearable. You cannot stop the sneeze
directly, but you can stop yourself.
What can you do? You feel the sensation that the sneeze is coming: stop!
Do not try to stop the sneeze, just you yourself stop. Do not do
anything. Remain completely unmoving, with not even your breath going in
or coming out. For a moment, stop, and you will feel that the impulse
has gone back, that it has dropped. And in this dropping of the impulse
a subtle energy is released which is used in going toward the center,
because in a sneeze you are throwing some energy out -- in any impulse.
`Impulse' means you are burdened with some energy which you cannot use
and cannot absorb. It wants to move out, it wants to be thrown out; you
want a relief. That is why after you sneeze you will feel good, a subtle
well-being. Nothing has happened, you have simply released some energy
which was superfluous, a burden. Now it is no more there; you are
relieved of it. Then you feel a subtle relaxation inside.
That is why physiologists, Pavlov, B. F. Skinner and others, say sex is
also like sneezing. They say physiologically there is no difference, sex
is just like sneezing. You are overburdened with energy; you want to
throw it out. Once it is thrown out your mechanism relaxes, you become
unburdened. Then you feel good. That good feeling is just a release,
according to physiologists, and as far as physiology goes they are
right. Whenever you have some impulse, JUST AS YOU HAVE THE IMPULSE TO
DO SOMETHING, STOP! Not only with a physiological impulse, any impulse
can be used.
For example, you were going to drink a glass of water. You have touched
the water, the glass -- suddenly stop. Let the hand be there, let the
desire to drink, the thirst be there inside, but you stop completely.
The glass is outside, the thirst is inside; the hand is on the glass,
the eyes are on the glass -- stop suddenly. No breathing, no movement,
as if you have become dead. The very impulse, the thirst, will release
energy, and that energy is used for going to the center. You will be
thrown to the center. Why? Because any impulse is a movement outward.
Remember, `impulse' means energy moving outward.
Remember another thing: energy is always in movement -- either going out
or coming in. Energy can never be static. These are the laws. If you
understand the laws, then the mechanism of the technique will be easy.
Energy is always in movement. Either it is moving out or moving in;
energy can never be static. If it is static it is not energy, and there
is nothing which is not energy, so everything is moving somewhere.
When an impulse, any impulse, comes to you, it means energy is moving
out. That is why your hand goes to the glass -- you have moved out. A
desire has come to do something. All activities are movements toward
that which is without from that which is within -- movements from within
to without.
When you stop suddenly, the energy cannot be static in you. You have
become static, but the energy cannot be static in you, and the mechanism
through which it was moving out is not dead, it has stopped. So what can
the energy do? The energy cannot do anything other than move inward.
Energy cannot be static. It was going out. You have stopped, the
mechanism has stopped, but the mechanism which can lead it toward the
center is there. This energy will move inward.
You are converting your energy and changing its dimension every moment
without knowing it. You are angry, and you feel to beat someone or to
destroy something or to do something violent -- try this. Take someone
-- your friend, your wife, your child, anyone -- and hug, kiss or
embrace him or her. You were angry, you were going to destroy something;
you wanted to do some violent thing. Your mind was destructive; the
energy was moving toward violence. Love someone immediately.
In the beginning you may feel that this is just like acting. You will
wonder, "How can I love? How can I love in this moment? I am angry!" You
do not know the mechanism. In this moment you can love deeply because
the energy has been aroused, it has arisen. It has come to a point where
it wants to be expressed, and energy needs movement. If you just start
loving someone, the same energy will move into love and you will feel a
rush of energy that you may not have ever felt.
There are persons who cannot go into love unless they are angry, unless
they are violent. There are people who can only go into deep love when
their energy is moving violently. You may not have observed, but it
happens daily: couples will fight before they make love. Wives and
husbands fight, become angry, become violent, and then they make love,
and they may not have understood what was happening. Then it becomes a
mechanical habit -- whenever they fight they will love. And the day they
do not fight they will not be able to love.
Particularly in Indian villages, where wives are still beaten, if a
certain husband stops beating his wife it is known that now he has
stopped loving her. And even wives understand that if the husband has
become totally nonviolent toward them, it means the love has stopped. He
is not fighting, so it means he is not loving.
Why? Why is fight so associated with love? It is associated because the
same energy can move in different dimensions. You may call it "love" or
"hate." They look opposite, but they are not so opposite, because the
same energy is moving. So a person who becomes incapable of hate becomes
incapable of love, according to your definitions of love. A person who
cannot be violently angry becomes incapable of the love which you know.
He may be capable of a different quality of love, but that is not your
love. A Buddha loves, but that love is totally different. That is why
Buddha calls it compassion; he never calls it love. It is more like
compassion, less like your love, because your love implies hate, anger,
violence.
Energy can move, can change directions. It can become hate, it can
become love -- the same energy. And the same energy can move inward
also, so whenever you have the impulse to do something, Stop! This is
not suppression. You are not suppressing anything, you are just playing
with energy -- just playing with energy and knowing the workings of it,
how it works inwardly. But remember, the impulse must be real and
authentic; otherwise nothing will happen.
For example, when there is no thirst you move to a glass of water and
then suddenly you stop. Nothing will happen because there is nothing to
happen -- the energy was not moving. You were feeling love toward your
wife, your husband, your friend. You wanted to hug, to kiss -- stop! But
the impulse must be there authentically. If the impulse is not there and
you were just going to console someone, to kiss because the kiss is
expected, and then you stop, then nothing will happen because nothing
was moving inside.
So first remember, the impulse must be authentic, real. Only with a real
impulse does energy move, and when a real impulse is suddenly stopped
the energy becomes suspended. With no dimension from where to move out,
it turns in. It has to move, it cannot remain there.
But we are so false that nothing seems real. You eat your meal because
of the clock, because of the time, not because of hunger. So if you
stop, nothing will happen because there was really no hunger behind it,
no impulse. No energy was moving there. That is why if you take your
meal at one o'clock, at one o'clock you will feel the hunger. But the
hunger is false; it is just a mechanical habit, just a dead habit. Your
body is not hungry. If you do not eat you will feel something is
missing, but if you can remain for one hour without eating you will
forget it, the hunger will have subsided.
A real hunger will grow more; it is bound to grow. If your hunger was
real, then at two you will feel more hungry. If the hunger was false,
then at two you will have completely forgotten. Really, there will be no
hunger at two. Even if you want to eat, now you will not feel hungry.
The hunger was just a false, mechanical feeling. No energy was moving,
it was just the mind saying to you that now this is the time to eat, so
eat.
If you are feeling sleepy, stop! But the feeling must be real; that is
the problem. And that is the problem for us now. It was not so in
Shiva's time. When the VIGYANA BHAIRAVA TANTRA was preached for the
first time, it was not so. Man was authentic, humanity was real, pure,
nothing was false about it. With us everything is false. You pretend
that you love; you pretend that you are angry. You go on pretending and
then you forget yourself whether you are pretending or whether anything
real is left. You never say what is in you, you never express it. You go
on expressing what is not there. Watch yourself and you will come to
know it.
You say something, but you feel something else. Really, you wanted to
say quite the opposite, but if you say the real thing you will become
totally unfit -- because the whole society is false, and in a false
society you can exist only as a false person. The more adjusted, the
more false, because if you want to be real you will feel a
maladjustment.
That is why renunciation came into existence, because of a false
society. Buddha had to leave not because it had any positive meaning,
but only a negative meaning -- because with a false society you cannot
be real. Or at every moment you are in a constant struggle,
unnecessarily and dissipating energy. So leave the unreal, leave the
false, so that you can be real. That was the basic reason for all
renunciation.
But watch yourself, how unreal you are. Watch the double mind. You are
saying something, but you are feeling quite the contrary.
Simultaneously, you are saying one thing in your mind and something else
without. Thus, if you stop anything which is not real, the technique
will not help. So find something authentic about yourself and try to
stop that. Not everything has become false, many things are still real.
Fortunately, everyone is real sometimes; in some moment everyone is
real. Then stop it.
You are feeling angry, and you feel it is real. You are going to destroy
something, beat your child, or do something: Stop! But do not stop with
a consideration. Do not say, "Anger is bad, so I should stop" -- no ! Do
not say, "This is not going to help the child, so I should stop." No
mental consideration is needed, because if you consider, then the energy
has moved into consideration. This is an inner mechanism.
If you say, "I should not beat my child because it is not going to do
any good to him, and this is not good for me also. This is useless and
this never helps," the same energy which was going to become anger has
become consideration. Now you have considered the whole thing, and the
energy has subsided. It has moved into consideration, into thinking.
Then you stop, but then there is no energy to move in. When you feel
angry, do not consider it, do not think about it being good or bad; do
not think at all. Suddenly remember the technique and stop!
Anger is pure energy... nothing bad, nothing good. It may become good,
it may become bad -- that will depend on the result, not on the energy.
It can become bad if it goes out and destroys something, if it becomes
destructive. It may become a beautiful ecstasy if it moves within and
throws you to the center; it may become a flower. Energy is simply
energy -- pure, innocent, neutral. Do not consider it. You were going to
do something -- do not think, simply stop and then remain stopped. In
that remaining you will have a glimpse of the inner center. You will
forget the periphery and the center will come into your vision.
Just as you have the impulse to do something, Stop! Try it. Remember
three things... One, try it only when a real impulse is there. Secondly,
do not think about stopping, just stop. And thirdly, wait! When you have
stopped, no breathing, no movement -- wait and see what happens. Do not
try. When I say to wait, I mean do not try now to think about the inner
center. Then you will again miss. Do not think of the self, of the
atman. Do not think that now the glimpse is there, now the glimpse is
coming. Do not think, just wait. Let the impulse, the energy move by
itself. If you start thinking about the brahman and the atman and the
center, the energy will have moved into this thinking.
You can waste this inner energy very simply. Just a thought will be
enough to give it a direction; then you will go on thinking. When I say
stop, it means stop totally, fully. Nothing is moving, as if the whole
time has stopped. There is no movement -- simply you are! In that simple
existence, suddenly the center explodes.
|